


An excuse and a witness

by anonissue



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Horror Elements, Multi, a certain degree of homophobia, and fade to black, and is on the verge of being in A Bad Way, kind of sweet if you squint at it funny, prelude to a threesome, with one partner who isn't neurotypical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:18:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5463074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonissue/pseuds/anonissue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike belongs to Jess, Jess belongs Mike. Josh can't remember what that feels like at all.</p><p>aka what if Josh had gotten distracted by the idea of being with Mike and Jess for a night and had followed them up to the cabin instead of initiating his elaborate game down at the house?</p>
            </blockquote>





	An excuse and a witness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Croik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Croik/gifts).



> I'm terrible at fix-its, but I tried. Gosh, do I love this game, though -- so I was glad for the challenge of writing something for the fandom. Hope you enjoy the holidays (if you celebrate them), and the start of the new year.

"Wanna invite him up with us?"

Mike feels a half-formed smile sneak onto his face without permission, a self-defensive habit he's been trying to kick since -- hell, middle school? And the immediate rejoinder, the simple rejection he wants to respond with (What? _No_!) dries up like a dead leaf and lodges in his throat, stopping all sound.

The pause is long enough that Jess, to his utter mortification, smiles shyly at him, like he's done something good. He doesn't know what to do with that or the way it makes him feel, has no clue at all.

"What?" Mike finally manages, but it sounds stuttered flat even to his ears. He wants to cringe.

"You know," Jess demurs, walking up to him now and tucking her hands inside the edges of his jacket. "I've always wondered what it'd be like to have someone watching us get all hot and heavy." And her tone is teasing, but the look on her face... really isn't. At least, not in a PG kind of way. Mike can feel his palms start to sweat, opts to rub them up and down Jess' sides over her jacket in attempt to mask his flare of nerves. Tries to keep things playful.

"Babe, all you had to do was ask, I have a web cam set-up _just_ for that kind of thing-- ow!!" Jess punches at his chest without any real intent.

"Not some gross-ass strangers, god," Jess sighs. "Besides, isn't a threesome -- like -- in every high school boy's top five fantasies?"

"Well, yeah," Mike finds himself scoffing, pulling Jess in closer to him. "But usually the more boobs, the better."

"Yeah, OK, try that line on someone who doesn't know you fooled around with Chris at the Halloween party back in 10th grade," and Mike feels his face heating at the smile breaking across Jess' face. He slips a hand over her mouth to derail her train of thought before he even really registers that he's done it.

"Shhh, we never speak of that night." Mike struggles to keep his hand in place instead of squirming away at the sensation of Jess licking at his palm. When he manages to maintain his hand over her mouth, with an unimpressed eyebrow raise, she switches tactics to bite at it instead. He removes it with a maligned yelp, wiping his wet palm off on his jeans.

"You're no fun," she sighs.

"I am totally fun," Mike says, managing to sound indignant. "I am the funnest fun guy to even fun, just you wait."

"Then let's get the show on the road, Mr. Fun Guy," Jess rolls her eyes, and starts to walk down the porch stairs. "I was promised a log-cabin romance."

Mike scratches his head, and with one last lingering glance at the darkened porch door, heads down the stairs after her. Neither one of them stays there long enough to notice the slight shift in the curtains covering the door, the patch of fog half-formed in the bottom corner, or the eyes that follow their figures into the flurried darkness.

 

The thing is, Josh has a plan. And this isn't, this _distraction_  isn't how things are supposed to go -- thoughts of naked skin and soft warm human presence aren't supposed to be what he's suddenly aching for -- no. He's got an agenda. There's a game afoot. He has a debt he _owes_ the people playing. The thing is that the plan is like clockwork, very little room for uncalculated spontaneity, and Josh is the first to admit adaptability isn't his forte, so it's clear -- the sound of Mike and Jess' conversation catches his attention again and Josh head tilts towards the outside before he can stop it -- it's clear Josh _should_ stick to the plan. But.

He sits in the dark, in the dust, his back to the wall ignoring the sound of skittering legs over wallpaper that he knows (probably) isn't real, and instead focuses on the the sounds of Jess and Mike talking outside. On the warm, raw curiosity in Jess' voice, in the simplicity of the embarrassment in Mike's. Josh chews at his lip. He didn't think Jess would've considered him -- it's not a variable he'd known he could work with. Josh is under no illusions about the way he comes across most days, especially not since he stopped taking the Abilify, started refusing to go for the shots Dr. Hill insisted he needed to be taking since he'd had trouble with rage cycles.

"Weirdo-- you big fucking weirdo." Josh covers his mouth to stifle the giggles that come unbidden. He's being too loud. He doesn't want Jess and Mike to hear him.  
  
He thinks instead of hiding in closets and shame and the anger that he deals with better when it's a vicious sense of humor than he can use like a knife on himself and on his sister's friends. He tries to control his breathing.

Josh relaxes finally when he hears first a lighter set of footsteps down the wooden outdoor stairs, and the finally the heavier, steadier gait belonging to Mike crunching snow down under his step. He runs his tongue back and forth across the shelf of his teeth, the rhythm and physical sensation letting his mind focus, focus back on the plan -- the plan that doesn't involve following Mike and Jessica out into the night further than to make sure they're forced down through the mines.

His mind trips back onto the knowledge, the secret knowledge, of Mike now together in his mind, hands on the soft stretch of Jessica's stomach, pressing into hipbones, soft, then sharper still, fingers running through a thatch of blonde pubic hair, blonde pubic hair that could just as easily be Jess or Chris and -- Josh presses his face to the cold glass of the door and exhales once, sharply. He spares a moment of guilty thought towards his waning dedication to follow his plan. He's being selfish and fucking stupid to boot, just because -- just because Mike has a drunken indiscretion under his belt, and just because Jess says shit to wind Mike up doesn't mean. It doesn't mean anything. And it certainly doesn't change the fact that Josh still wants to teach his friends a lesson, still wants to itch at this thing that's been living under his skin since his sisters went missing.

Josh pushes up off the floor, shakes himself like a dog trying to rid its fur of water. There are sounds filtering up from the main floor now, laughter -- stilted and awkward, tension that Emily seems to covet like armor, a broad exhaustion shouldered by Sam, a general sense of unease between the remaining Chris, Matt, and Ashley. Josh smirks, tracing the line of the banister under his fingers and he walks briskly downstairs. He can do this. He doesn't have to chase after the impossible tease of vicarious lust making its way down to the power generator shed now out in the snow.

But then, Matt and Emily decide to head back down to the lift for a missing bag, Sam wants to take a bath, and Chris and Ashley look to be dedicated to dancing around each other for the rest of the night, despite Josh's attempts at encouraging Chris to just go for it. Josh can feel his plan deflating, the edge, the desire to chase and terrorize (with a lesson in mind, of course) and fool, wearing thin. It suddenly seems easier to let everyone here stew, to justify trekking out into the snow, and Josh doesn't really know how to quantify the curiosity that has him making his excuses.

"I just realized, I forgot to tell Mike and Jess about the generator -- they won't be able to get the gates open to the rest of the property without turning it on; you mind keeping yourselves entertained for half an hour or so?"

"Yeah, bro, go for it," Chris affirms, seeming only a little put out.

More embarrassed, Josh thinks, at the idea of spending time alone with Ashley and having no idea what to do with himself. He finds himself leaning in close, clapping his hands on Chris' shoulders and whispering conspiratorially: "Be me a little."

"That is terrible advice," Chris grins.

Josh is assaulted by the image of that same easy smile tracing paths down what his mind supplies as substitute for breasts he knows don't belong to Jess, to the curve of an ass he knows doesn't belong Mike. Josh licks his lips, own smirk faltering. He turns to move himself out into the night and away from thoughts he has no business entertaining. He's still going ahead with his plan, he insists to himself and the Greek chorus taking up residence in his head. Josh trudges through the snow, taking a shortcut he knows will put him ahead of Mike and Jess. If he concentrates on the burning sweeping across his cheeks, Josh can ignore the trees whispering secrets they have no business knowing above and around him.

 

The walk to the cabin is almost normal, almost relaxing -- Mike has memories of quiet flurries in deep winter and family and the sort of stark cold grace of nature that has always simultaneously made him feel small and alive -- until shit gets real creepy in the mines.

And keeps getting creepier with weird masks in abandoned caravans and these weird wooden totems he keeps finding lying around, weirdly forgotten or discarded and that have an odd habit of fading from his memory after he returns them to their resting place. There's something ethereal about the whole experience, which he's decided he's going to focus on, rather than the clear My Blood Valentine vibe of the mines. He really should be giving Jess more credit, though, because instead of getting wigged out (like Mike's slowly been) -- or even avoiding getting wigged out -- she's taken the weird collection of bric-a-brac murder mythology they've come across and spun it into teasing jokes and pranks that Mike finds unsettling, despite being clearly good-natured.

The fake-out when she disappears behind the log walks the line of being just a little too much for Mike's nerves, but her bright laughter and carless joy have Mike biting his tongue, and marveling at how a little winter cold is making her face look wind-burnt and alive. They talk a little, as they continue onwards. About Emily's bitchiness, about insecurities, about how this whole trip is some weird penitent anniversary, and what little time isn't spent talking is spent not slipping as they finally pass more signage letting them know they're heading in the right direction. The whole while, though, Mike can't help but wonder if they're being a little too loud, a little too frivolous in the darkness of the mountain. He keeps feeling like someone's following them, but Jess doesn't seem like she shares his concerns, so Mike pushes the niggling paranoia from his mind.

Mike focuses on the way Jess worms her too cold hands under his jacket and against his skin as they walk -- a shock that leaves him breathless in a way he doesn't mind -- on the way Jess flirts like she breathes. On the way he's pretty sure she wasn't joking about threesomes earlier.

He only stops thinking about Jess when there's suddenly chorus of unholy screams echoing in the woods, and then the mauled deer, wet and snuffling and dying as Mike touches it's face.

"I don't think it's gonna make it," Mike confesses, startled by the sudden reality of the woods.

"God, the poor thing," Jess says, slightly sobered for the first time of the night.

When it gets (taken, there's no other word for it but taken but Mike doesn't want to _understand_ ) pulled away with a sudden snarl into the underbrush, Mike resumes thinking about Jess, only a second after his body moves backwards and away without his permission and then he's shouting:

"Run, _run_ \--"

and just as quickly, a few short scrambling minutes later, finally out of the cold and out of breath:

"I had in under control the whole time."

Jess snorts, good humor returning now that they're ensconced inside the really old and raggedy cabin. "Oh, bullshit."

"No -- a hundred percent, a hundred -- _hah_ ," Mike wheezes.

"Holy crap, I feel like I just ran a marathon," Jess giggles, eyes starting to search their new surroundings. She wanders over to the couch, touching the material.

"I think we kind of just did." Mike sighs, scrubbing at his face.

Jess pauses, frowning lightly, walking over to the fogged up front window. She traces the glass with her fingers. "Was it a bear? I didn't see it."

"Yeah, gotta be -- things are crazy fast," Mike shrugs. "But don't worry, it's not going to come barging in. I'm pretty sure bears don't know how to open cabin doors."

"I've seen them open car doors," Jess counters, staring outside for a second more before turning an arch look back on Mike. "On the internet."

"Yeah, well, this isn't the internet, Jess. This is real life." And it's not that Mike's starting to get genuinely annoyed, it's just. He doesn't actually want to keep thinking about what just happened. How it just adds to the genuinely weird fucking walk they've just taken from Josh's parent's place to get here. And besides, Mike had hopped they'd put their time here tonight to better uses, really. He walks over to Jess, and rubs at her arms. "And I promise you no bear, or anything else, is going to open that cabin door."

She sighs, and turns away from the window. Mike takes it as a small victory, especially when she immediately starts bossing him around to get a fire going. This Mike can handle, banter, pretend to be put upon trying to find a blanket for her, lighting the fire stove, getting them warm. Jess' phone going missing is a hiccup, sure, and almost kills the mood again, but they persevere. They talk. Mike staunchly ignores the fact that it would be ridiculously easy to actually, really care about Jess, and when they finally, finally really start kissing, he manages to relax for the first time since coming back to this mountain.

 

It's not hard for Josh to follow Mike and Jess, not even with the snow picking up and leaving distracting tracks like ash everywhere on his body. It's just one more thing to focus on, to ignore. When he follows footprints in the snow past some of the presents he left, he has to avoid lingering, to look -- to see if maybe they had stumbled across the little altars to his fear, the game he'd set up for all of them. He knows that if he stops, if he dallies, he'll get distracted again, even more distracted from the plan than he already is by the pockets of Jess' laughter the wind carries back from further down the path, by the idea that maybe he doesn't need to terrify everyone just to feel less alone. He trips over what he thinks is a rock initially and stumbles, catching himself before falling face first into the snow.

Josh picks up the rock, and watches it cry white paint until it swallows itself whole and turns into a wood carving of a butterfly. An image -- of Jess in a bra, flickers of firelight, and Josh intertwining his fingers with hers as Mike looks on, from a couch, face torn between wonder and something darker -- flutters through Josh's mind before he can help it, and he drops the totem before he can stop a gasp. The wind swallows the noise whole, and when he looks back down at his feet, he can't find any proof that what he was just holding was real.

Josh knows that it's not good that keeps happening, but maybe if he can just _focus_ \--

There's a scream in the woods to his left, and it startles him badly enough that his head whips around like a swivel and a screech owl barrels past him. Where it disappears back into the treeline is a glowing talisman, and Josh feels compelled forwards, to pick it up. It doesn't take very long to figure out it's Jessica's phone, her Spotify open and paused.

"Distorted, confused, and unidentified boundaries are the rotting root of your abandonment, Joshua; do you really think your... friends, Mike and Jessica, want you back in their lives?" Dr. Hill has always had a weird, sort of sibilant way of marking his pauses in speech. It's his voice Josh hears clear as day in his head now, the reflection of his desk Josh can see in the screen of Jess' phone if he looks at it out of the corner of his eye. "Do you really think these same people who used Hannah's embarrassment and vulnerability as entertainment deserve anything better than having the same cruelty visited on them?"  
  
" _Stop_ , you're not even here," Josh hisses into the cold hair, watching his breath puff out. Tries again, louder: "You're not even real." His voice echos back at him a little, but most of his shout is lost to the trees.

A memory, from 9th grade, comes. It was Valentine's day, and Hannah had given Jessica a blush-colored rose. Josh had found out later that his sister had given him up, that she had told Jess: "Josh said I should tell you it's from me so you don't throw it it away, but--" and that she can told Jess: "He picked it because it's your favorite color," because Jess had come up to him later that day and kisses him once, on the cheek, with only a "don't let it get to your head, weirdo," tossed over her shoulder in explanation. 

Josh looks down at the phone, feels it creak under the press of his fist, and then stops trying to crush it. Un-pauses the Kate Bush song that had been playing and hums along aimlessly with it, trying to learn its tune as he walks a little faster to catch up with his sisters' friends in the snow.

 

Mike is investing himself in the feel of Jess's skin under his fingers, under his nose and mouth, the fire casting a glow across her skin and she straddles him on the couch. Being with her feels simple, natural in a way Emily never had. There's no brittleness, no bitter aftertaste to chase the sweet as he licks at her lip-gloss they've smeared across her chin and jaw. He can feel her laughter in the way the bare skin of her chest shakes under his hands. Mike wants to be drunk, wants to be breathless and half-awake in the press of her breasts to his face. Jess pulls at his hair, tilting his head back from where he's started to pepper her cleavage with kisses, and looks like she's going to say something. She pauses, though, half-distracted, and Mike would like to  _believe_ it's from the way he's rolling one of her nipples between his fingers through the scratchy lace of her bra, but suddenly, she seems. Off.

"What is it?" he asks, wincing at needing to clear his throat once to even be heard (because wow, Mike, way to have zero chill while getting down).

"You hear that?" Jess asks, quiet, still rolling her hips steadily along his. "It sounds like... music?"

"Maybe you left your phone on?" Mike leans up, tries to bite gently at her neck, but his words have Jess sitting up, startled, thighs tensing around him in a distinctly not-sexy way.

"Mike, I lost my phone outside on the way here."

"Maybe it was just in a pocket you forgot to check --"

" _Mike_ \--" she insists, climbing off him and looking around the living room, eyes wide. And yeah, Mike can hear it. He scrubs his hands over his face. It sounds like Natalie Imbruglia or something else from that ridiculous playlist Jess made him endure on their drive up here, and it actually sounds like it's coming from outside. That last thought makes Mike blink and sit up. Jess is already staring at the shuttered windows facing the porch of the cabin.

"Mike, go check," Jess demands more than asks, though her voice is quiet in a way he doesn't like.

Mike doesn't even really grumble about it, just gets up, listens to the music get louder, up until he gets to the window and throws the wood latch open to face whatever's on the other side. Jess' phone sits, screen towards the clear glass, on the other side of the window.

_I stand at an open window, I see everything there is to see -- I've been watching you, isn't it true the fool keeps taking you down?_

Mike blinks, and almost misses the movement just out of his line of vision towards the end of the deck. He lunges for the door, ignoring Jess' questions, trying to move as quickly as he can outside despite the sudden bite of cold, not wanting to miss --

\-- Josh, trying to be casual about walking back out into the snow and away from the light cast out by the window. He doesn't seem to have a flashlight, which, honestly, Mike thinks, isn't actually the weirdest part of this whole situation.

"Oh, hey, I uh --" Josh tries, looks anywhere but right at Mike. "Just wanted to make sure you guys made it down here alright, and found that on my way here." Josh gestures to the phone at the window as if it would even be possible for Mike not to understand what he's talking about. "Forgot to mention the log blocking the path earlier up, didn't want you to turn into popsicles out here."

Mike considers what he could say to that, but finds himself staring at the way Josh just keeps clenching and unclenching his hands, like they're trying to remember how to touch. It's also cold, and really goddamn dark, and Mike thinks about blood on the snow and the sure knowledge his gut has that the gouges they found that deer sporting earlier were not from a bear.

"What about you?" Jess calls, quietly, from where's standing at the door. She walks up to Mike and hugs him, his shirt slung around her shoulders. Mike can feel the cold under his skin borrowing from her, just as surely as she must be able to feel him shiver. Josh for his part seems to be carved of wood and standing stock still, staring sure at Jess in a way he couldn't bring himself to look at Mike.

"Come inside with us before your freeze to death," Jess sighs, sounding exasperated but -- again. Lacking a bite, lacking bitterness. She pulls at Mike's arm before returning to the open door, snagging her phone on the way in and turning the music off. Mike follows her, pushes past her inside as she stops at the door frame to look over her shoulder at Josh. "C'mon weirdo, you're letting at the heat out."

Mike watches her stretch out her hand into the darkness, and pretends he's not relieved when Josh is suddenly there and taking it.

 


End file.
